Internews Center for Innovation & Learning

Search form

Main menu

"Catapult" - a crowdfunding platform supporting girls and women

The creators of Catapult believe in gender equality. Unfortunately, this is far from reality for the many women around the world who live in difficult conditions.

At the same time, organizations involved in projects dedicated to women receive half as much funding as other non-profit organizations. The aim of Catapult is to change this. With our help, Catapult aims to solve the problem of gender inequality around the world.

How does it work?

Catapult connects projects that need help with people who are willing to help.

Catapult is doing everything possible to ensure that projects aiming to improve lives of women can find support and necessary financing. The service works very simply:

1. The non-profit organization uploads information about projects which need funding: description, photos, and stories explaining the purpose of the project and which improvements additional funding would make. Any organization can use the service by uploading relevant documents, as long as it is registered in its country under charitable status. If you need any assistance in making a project page, you can always contact the Catapult team. Using Catapult is absolutely free!

2. As a visitor to the website, you choose a project that you believe in, support it, and share it on your social networks.

3. Project receives funding and begins to work!

Team

Catapult was developed in 2011 with the support of a non-profit organization called "Women Deliver," whose main goal is improving the health of girls and women around the world. Maz Kessler and Jill Sheffield, Presidents of Women Deliver, created Catapult as a place where everyone can invest in girls and women and thus help achieve gender equality in the world.

Curators

The curators of Catapult are cultural, political, and scientific leaders and leaders of non-profit organizations. They choose projects that they like and showcase these to their audience, encouraging visitors to the platform to support these projects.

You can join the team of any curator; all it would require is donating to at least one of the projects recommended by the curator. You can keep track of each curator's projects, be notified of updates, and find new projects.

Also, you can join any of the many teams in Catapult. Teams are usually made up of friends, work colleagues and people who share the same interests. You can discuss projects and ideas with your team, and your donations will form a collective team fund.

Gift cards

On Catapult's website, you can buy a gift card, with which you can make a donation to any project. You just send the gift card via email to a friend or a family member, and he or she chooses the project he or she wants to fund.